Fantasy Football Start em, Sit em: Jalen McMillan, Cade Otton, Caleb Williams (Week 8)

Start em or sit em? Fantasy football start or sit decisions can be excruciating. While it feels great to make the right call and cruise to fantasy glory, it hurts just as much when you have someone erupt while on your bench. You can use our Who Should I Start? tool to gauge advice from fantasy football experts as you make your lineup decisions. And you can also sync your fantasy football league for free using our My Playbook tool for custom advice, rankings and analysis.

Let’s take a look at a few polarizing players and what fantasy football expert Derek Brown advises. And you can find all of DBro’s fantasy football outlook in this week’s fantasy football primer.

Fantasy Football Start em, Sit em Lineup Advice

Jalen McMillan (WR)

Everyone is speculating who lines up where in this new-look Bucs passing attack. Well, here goes nothing. I don’t know if McMillan’s role as an outside receiver this season changes much with the shuffling of receivers. He has played 71% of his snaps on the perimeter his season, and in the fourth quarter of last week’s game, he played 80% of his snaps from the boundary. I could easily be wrong here, or the Bucs could move all three guys around the formation, but right now, I lean that McMillan will remain an outside receiver, so that’s how I’m approaching his Week 8 outlook. McMillan will be thrust into a larger role moving forward, but it’s worth questioning how effective he will be in the elevated role. McMillan has had a 7.1% target share, 0.70 YPRR, and a 7% first-read share. Among 109 qualifying receivers, he ranks 89th in separation score. McMillan has five deep targets and one red zone look this season. If possible, I’m sitting McMillan this week to see how this reshuffling of the guard works out. Atlanta has allowed the second-highest PPR points per target to perimeter wide receivers while ranking 19th in receiving yards per game allowed. The matchup is good, so if you’re willing to embrace the risk and are in a flex pickle for Week 8, I get plugging him into a lineup.

Cade Otton (TE)

Otton stands to get the biggest boost in the passing game with Chris Godwin and Mike Evans out. Since Week 3, he has been the TE9 in fantasy points per game, drawing an 18.9% target share with 1.68 YPRR and a 17.5% first-read share. Otton has seven red zone targets across his last six games. He is a strong TE1 this week with a middle-of-the-road matchup with Atlanta, who is 16th in receiving yards and 14th in fantasy points per game allowed to tight ends.

Caleb Williams (QB)

Williams has finished as a QB1 in each of his last two starts (QB6, QB1). The talented rookie signal caller looks like he has turned a corner since Week 3. Since Week 3, among 37 qualifying quarterbacks, he ranks seventh in yards per attempt, ninth in CPOE, 12th in highly accurate throw rate, and 11th in fantasy points per dropback. He should continue the feel-good train in Week 8 against Washington. The Commanders have allowed the fourth-highest success rate per dropback, the seventh-highest yards per attempt, the third-highest passer rating, and the ninth-highest CPOE.

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